Name: Mercedes and Angeli

Spaceflight Experiment Details

Collaborators: (Who will you work with on this proposal)

Angeli Soils and Mercedes Davis

Fluids Mixing Enclosure (FME) Type Proposed to be Used (choose one):

This is a general outline of what your experimental tube will look like. You can have up to three different
cavities that can be mixed at different points in the experiment:

Type 3 FME (3 experiment volumes: two clamps used)

Experiment Design: (Provide a brief outline of how you will conduct your experiment)

How will microgravity have an effect on the rusting of a piece of iron?

Our experiment idea is to see how microgravity affects the rusting of a piece of iron. We will test three
pieces of iron to see which one will rust faster. One will be in water, the other one in non-strong alcohol,
and the last one by itself. By using different environments we will be able to see which piece of iron rusts
faster.

How does the experiment address the question posed? (Refer to your guiding question above, and
explain how your experiment will address it.)

This experiment can answer our question because there are different elements that make up space. For
iron to rust we need to create iron oxide which is the mixture of water and oxygen when near iron.

Experiment Materials: (Explain the materials needed and why they were chosen. In the samples list, you
must include the exact amount of each sample you plan to use. For example, you can list the volume
(e.g., 0.1 ml of water or 0.2 ml of Bacillus subtilis spores), the mass (e.g., 0.1 g yeast), the dimensions
(e.g., 0.5 cm x 0.5 cm piece of cotton), or the number to be used (e.g., 3 radish seeds).)
Materials needed Explanation

Three pieces of iron Iron will be the object that we will test. Having
three pieces of iron will allow us to test different
environments for the iron to see which
environment will rust the iron faster.

Water Water is one of the materials in which we are

going to put in one of the pieces of iron

Non - strong alcohol We will put one of the pieces of iron in this
because we want to test out the effects of the
different environments on the pieces of iron.

A piece of iron by itself. We would like to see if microgravity will have any
effect on the simple piece of iron causong it to
rust.

Experimental Procedure: (Explain how the experiment will be initiated and concluded. Remember that
you may use clamps on your tube to allow mixing of fluids. This can also involve any testing you have
done on the ground in advance to justify your experiment.)

We will get three pieces of iron, water, and non - strong alcohol, when we have gathered our materials we
will proceed with setting up our experiment. Filling up the first volume half way up with water and then
putting in the piece of iron. We will put the piece of iron all on its own in the second volume. Finally the
last piece of iron will be put into the volume three and we will fill up half of the space with non strong
alcohol.

Crew Interactions:

Allowed Crew Interactions: only the interactions listed in the Table below are allowed, unless a team had
requested and received approval for some other interaction from NCESSE before submitting a proposal.

Allowed Crew Allowed Modifiers

Interactions

Un-Clamp none

Clamp (means re-clamp) none

Shake type of shaking: gently, vigorously

duration options in seconds: 5 sec, 10 sec, 20 sec,
30 sec, 60 sec, 90 sec
Wait a team can request that the astronaut wait a specified
number of seconds between two other requested
interactions; wait duration: xx sec

As an example of a proposed Timeline of Crew Interactions, if you are using a Type 3 FME, which
requires two instances where clamps are to be unclamped and the FME is to be shaken to mix the
contents of the experiment volumes, you could state:

1) Day A+2: Un-Clamp Clamp A, shake gently for 5 seconds

2) Day U-2: Un-Clamp Clamp B, shake gently for 10 seconds

Describe your crew interactions here:

Leave as it is and every other wednesday leave clamps on and shake gently for 30 seconds.

Experimental analysis: (How will your analyze your results once the experiment returns to earth to
determine if the key question has been addressed?)

We will simply see if the pieces of iron fully rusted. From this realization we will be able to answer our
question.